Hunter squadron
by Alzief
Summary: The galactic civil war lasted 21 years. 21 years of merciless war that cost the lives of millions of people. Among all the squadrons that fought and died for the rebellion, one of them distinguished himself particularly: the hunter squadron. Follow these twelve souls as they fight in every corner of the galaxy in one of the greatest conflict ever seen.
1. Chapter 1

**Following my friend advice, I**** have translated my story in English, but keep in mind that English is not my mother tongue, so there will surely have some fault, h****owever, I hope that you will enjoy it.**

(The formal statement of rebellion, in bold, comes from the Wookipedia website)

* * *

Tatooine, years 33 of the calendar of the Great Resynchronization

Two human women sat at a table in a dark corner of a Mos Ila cantina.

The first was tall and had long blond hair that went down to the lower back with Lilac eyes while the second was smaller, also younger, with gray eyes with black hair that went down to her neck and whose the tips were red.  
Both wore clothes similar to those of the smugglers, the yellow as the dominant color for the oldest, the red for the youngest.

"Yang, are you sure our contact should join us here ?" asked the youngest of the two.

"Do not worry Ruby, you know I'm never wrong."

"Of course, like this time on Kessel."  
"It's not the same, how was I supposed to know that our contact had been arrested by the imperials ?"

Both were silent at the mention of the empire before Ruby resumed, looking discreetly around her.

"If it's a trap..."  
"I do not think so, Di-Mand-Trat hates the empire as much as we do, it would not have sent us into a trap, at least not voluntarily..."

While the two women looked at the cantina with suspicion, a Nautolan approached them and said with a smile:

"Good morning, have you seen the latest news?"  
Ruby and Yang look at each other for a moment recognizing the code of their contact before Ruby answers.

"Indeed, they seem to be carried by the force."  
The Nautolan nodded before sitting in front of the two women.

"Well, we can talk then, and I will be direct, why do you want to join us."  
Yang thought about what had caused them to contact the rebel alliance a week ago:

the two suns of Tatooine shining in the cloudless sky were at their zenith and the various inhabitants of Mos Eisley were trying to protect themselves from the heat.

Yang was in front of a departure board for shuttles to the spaceport.

She was looking at whether there were departures for a more civilized planet than this pebble, the problem is that she and Ruby had no more ships after having to sell theirs to Jaba the Hutt for repaying their debts. It was at this moment that Ruby ran towards her like a madwoman, and the force knows that Ruby runs fast.

-Yaaaaang look look, it's amazing.  
Yang stepped back, letting Ruby rubbing on the ground head first in an impressive slide, which made Yang smile.

"Well well Ruby, what can motivate you so much."

Rubis got up immediately without protesting at Yang's dodging, which did not fail to surprise her, already ready to tease Ruby.  
"Look what I found in the street earlier," said Ruby, handing her a paper.

It was a flyer that seemed stained by the sand of Tatooine and smelled of powder

_**"W**__e, the beings of the Rebel Alliance, do this day send forth this Declaration to His Majesty, the Emperor, and to all sentient beings in the Galaxy, to make clear to all the Purposes and Goals of this Rebellion. _

_**W**__e firmly acknowledge the importance and necessity of the institution of Galactic Government. We accept that all must subjugate themselves to that Government, giving up certain rights and freedoms, in return for peace, prosperity and happiness for all.__  
__We believe that the Galactic Government derives its power and right to rule from the consent of the governed. We believe that, should the rights of free beings be willfully and malignantly usurped, it is the unalienable right of said beings to alter or abolish said Government._

_**W**__e believe that the Galactic Empire has willfully and malignantly usurped the rights of the free beings of the Galaxy and therefore, it is our unalienable right to abolish it from the Galaxy. __  
__We do not take this course lightly. Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, but when a Government displays a history of usurpation, abuse and moral atrocity, displaying a clear design to subjugate totally and absolutely beings born free under the auspices of nature, it is our right—our duty—to depose of that Government._

_**T**__he history of the present Galactic Empire is of repeated injuries upon its members, with the direct objective of establishing you, Emperor Palpatine, as absolute tyrant over the Galaxy: _

_You have disbanded the Senate, the voice of the people; You have instituted a policy of blatant racism and genocide against the nonhuman peoples of the Galaxy; You have overthrown the chosen leaders of planets, replacing them with Moffs and Governors of your choice; You have raised taxes without the consent of those taxed; You have murdered and imprisoned millions without benefit of trial; You have unlawfully taken land and property; You have expanded the military far beyond what is necessary and prudent, for the sole purpose of oppressing your subjects. _

_**W**__e, the Rebel Alliance, do therefore in the name—and by the authority—of the free beings of the Galaxy, solemnly publish and declare our intentions:_

_To fight and oppose you and your forces, by any and all means at our disposal; To refuse any Imperial law contrary to the rights of free beings; To bring about your destruction and the destruction of the Galactic Empire; To make forever free all beings in the galaxy. _

_**T**__o these ends, we pledge our property, our honor, and our lives."_

As Yang read, she felt her eyes widen, and unconsciously a smile formed on her lips as she felt the heat spread in her stomach.

"I It's great Ruby, who gave you that ?"

"That's the best part, nobody !"

"Nobody ? Yang repeated without understanding what her sister meant."

"Yup, there was an explosion in the central square of the colony, at first I thought of an assassination or a settling of scores, then thousands of flyers spread throughout the place."

Yang imagined the scene for a moment before making a decision, a decision that will change their future forever.  
Yang suddenly put her hands on Ruby's shoulders, causing her to startle and look into her eyes before saying.

"Ruby, let's join this rebel alliance."

"B But it was you who said that no matter how much people would rebel that would not change anything."

"It was BEFORE seeing this flyer, Ruby listens if a grou ... no if several rebel groups allies are daring to do that, they can make a difference."

"I don't know Yang."

"Ruby, this is an opportunity for us to no longer live in terror, to decide our own destiny, to avenge ourselves !"

Yang immediately regretted these words knowing that they remember to Ruby bad memories, which she saw through her eyes.

"I'm sorry Ruby, I didn't mean to ..."

"It's okay Yang, you're right", said Ruby shaking her head and putting her right hand on the left of yang before saying

"But how are we going to contact them ?"

"I know someone who could help us" said Yang smiling.

So she made contact with Di-Mand-Trat who had told them to meet the agent in the small settlement of Mos Ila, far from the imperial eyes.  
Returning to the present the blonde looked at the Notolan who was waiting for their answer

"We have hate the empire for a long time, but until now, nobody seemed to be able to really face it, if your rebel alliance really has the means to make war against the empire, then we will fight on your side."

The notolan looked at them for a moment without saying anything, in truth, he already knew that the two women in front of him had good reason to blame the empire, he had already made his inquiry.

But he wanted to see their motives in their eyes, and he was not disappointed, the two women seemed sincere in their desire to join the rebel alliance and seemed ready to fight and maybe even to die for their purpose...

He gets up and said before leaving:  
"Tomorrow morning go see the captain of the Red Void, Askedan, and tell him that you came from Bornavan, he will lead you to us."

Yang and Ruby watched him walk away for a moment before sighing.

"Good, it looks like it was not a trap finally" said Ruby.

"Indeed."

Then Yang finally smiled and gave a big blow on Ruby's shoulder.  
"Come on little sister, it is high time that we prepare for our new life."

Ruby's only answer was a shy smile as she rubbed her shoulder.  
Yet, without their knowledge, someone at the bar had taken note of their conversation...

* * *

The next day, several stormtrooper were in an alley near the astroport and questioned a Jawa next to his stall by showing him the profile of a Blonde and a brunette on a datapad.

"Have you seen one of this two people ?"

The Jawa shook his head forcefully, arguing in his tongue with a shrill voice that he would never know a person that the empire disapproves of and went on a long tirade on the fact that the Jawa only sell droids and do not speak to criminal, the importance of droids, the harshness of life on Tatooine and much more, making the stormtrooper sigh.

"Okay okay, I understand, come on guys, let's go."

As soon as the stormtrooper went out of sight, the jawa opened the back hatch of a large robot destined for the mines, from which exit Yang and Ruby, both wearing a large coat and a turban hiding their faces.

Yang tapped the jawa's head before giving him several credits.

"Thank you little guys, I hope it's going to help you with your clan" said yang before she and Ruby go to the spaceport with the little Jawa farewell cry.

On their way, Ruby was rather worried, which Yang did not fail to notice.

"What is there Ruby, you look disturbed."

"The imperial should not be in a city as small as Mos Ila."

"I know, someone must have heard us at the cantina."

"They make things very difficult for us," said Rubis, sighing.

The two women walked discreetly to the spaceport, which was big enough for a colony of this size, and began searching for the Red Void ship.  
they finally found it in a corner of the spaceport, it was an old transport dating from the clone war, at the foot of the ship a middle-aged human was in a discussion with a Zabrak about departure.

"No Telone, since I tell you they will not be long, we have to wait."

The Zabrak shook his head while answering:

"The imperials are on the war foot since this morning, the sooner we leave, the better."

That's when Yang and Ruby choose to step forward, yang waving her hand to get their attention.

"Hey, I see we're waiting."

Seeing that they looked at them strangely Ruby added:  
"We come from Bornavan."

Telone heaved a sigh of relief and asked Askedan if he could start the ship now, this latter nodded.

"You must be yang and Ruby, you're late."

"we have been avoided some imperial on the road," replied Ruby.

"It is true that they have swarmed in the city since yesterday, someone had to warn them of our small operation."

The Captain looked at them for a moment before beckoning them to come up.

"Come on, before the stormtrooper..."  
Before he could finish his sentence, several imperials came to the entrance of the platform.

"You, stop right there !"

Before the stormtrooper could even lift his blaster, Askedan had already fired with his own.

"GET IN THE SHIP, NOW!"

The two sisters were already on the boat ramp before he began his sentence, knowing full well that if they were caught in the middle of the crime of rebellion, the only way out would be death, or worse...

Askedan fired a few more salvos before getting himself into the spaceship.

"Telone takes off the ship, Yang, Ruby, I hope you know how to use a weapon, go to the turrets, it's at the end of the corridor on your right."

"If we know how to use a weapon ? My sister is the best gunwoman of the outer rim" Yang exclaimed, chasing Ruby down the winding corridor to the laser turrets.

The ship took off before heading quickly to the space while the stromtrooper firing to the ship.

"Askedan, we have an imperial corvette in orbit and a whole TIE fighter squadron is heading towards us."

"okay, give me the command and schedule us a jump to Yavin 4."

"copy that."

The ship advanced at full speed but was soon caught by the fighter of the empire.

But before they can be in range of fire, one of their wingers was destroyed by a turret of the Red Void, astonishing the imperial as much as the members of the Red Voide themselves.

"HAHA played well Ruby, you're not my sister for nothing !"  
A second salvo left at the end of Yang's sentence destroying a new device before they can reach.

Immediately after the fighter began their assault on the ship, Yang began firing and unlike rubies of which almost every shot was a hit, Yang fired first, and then aimed, which did not prevent her from destroying a Tie fighter quickly, to which the imperial pilot responded by firing on the reactors, fortunately protected by the shields.

"Telone, where is this jump, our shields have already lost a third of their power !"

"Almost almost, another minute..."

"No choice then, ladies prepare yourselves, it'll shake."

Askedan suddenly reduced the power of the main reactors and increased to the maximum the power of the auxiliary reactors making the ship "rising" which it literally passing over the imperial fighter in a maneuver that if it had been wrongly executed would have cut the ship in two because of the centrifugal force, forcing the captain to keep his ships at his limit, the latter moaning of all its components.

The maneuver was so daring and dangerous that the Tie fighter forgot their avoidance maneuver for a moment, a moment that Yang and Ruby took advantage of by destroying two more fighters before Telone's voice reached them.

"It's done, I finished programming the jump."

"Well done," said Askedan before putting the ship into position and launching the hyper-propulsion taking out the Red Void and its crew from the system


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Yavin 4

* * *

Yavin system space, 4 days later.

Yang, Ruby, Telone and Askedan were on the deck of the Red Void as it approached Yavin 4

"Yavin control, here the Red Void with 2 passengers on board, ask permission to land."

"Here Yavin control, permission granted Red Void, welcome home."

Askedan sighed before turning to the two sisters with a slight smile.

"Well ladies, this is where our journey ends."

"Thank you for bringing us here" said Ruby with a smile on her face, making Telone turn around

"Hey, you are just extra merchandise girls, basically, we were on Tatooine to buy weapons from the Hutt."

"Ha, my sister is certainly the most rubelle merchandise of all your ship" says yang smiling.

"..."

"..."

You understand, Ruby, rebel, rubel..

-Yaaang, Ruby moaned.

-okay, alright, none of you understand my sense of humor anyway.

Askedan sighed again, it was not Yang's first bad Puns, and certainly not the last.

"OK girls prepare yourselves for the landing, we'll be there soon and an officer will take care of you once there"

"Okay."

It took about 20 minutes for the ship to reach the base and descend to a clearing in front of what appeared to be a Massassi temple.

As they descended, the two sisters were momentarily dazzled by the sun before finally seeing the temple and the dozens of rebel soldiers bustling around the airstrip.

"Well Ruby, it looks like we have arrived"

"Finally, I thought this trip would never end"

As the two women looked around them curiously, a man in an alliance officer's uniform approached them, he was a small man with a heavy mustache and white hair.

"Hello, I'm Major Port, you must be the two new recruits that Captain Askedan brought us, right ?"

"Yep, my name is Yang and here is my sister, Ruby."

"Hi."

"Well, please follow me, we must complete some formality" said Port making a sigh grow in Yang

"Great, paperwork..."

"Come on, it will surely be fast, what could they ask us ?"

2 hours later, even Ruby wanted only one thing: Get out of here

"FINISHED, FINALLY FINISHED" yelling Yang loudly pressing the record button

"Wait for me sis, I'm almost done"

"Hurry up, what have you answer ?"

"The place of birth, we are born in space, so..."

"put corelia, this is where we grew up after all."

"aaand, it's over!"

Ruby and Yang were heading towards Captain Port who was waiting at the entrance of the room welcoming them with a smile.

"Did you finish the formalities ?"

Seeing that they both nodded, he motioned them to follow him

"So, you will both rest in the dormitory that you will be assigning with two other people, try to get to know them, if you all succeed tomorrow's test, you will surely be teammate."

"The test, which test ?" Ruby asked

"haha, tomorrow, all the young people who joined us will make a battle in simulator, it will allow us to see who will be directly able to pilot and who will have to spend more time in the simulators"

"But we have never flew Alliance fighters" Yang replied

"in fact, we never flew a fighter at all" added Ruby

"Don't worry, I saw that you have put in your record that you have experience of flying on light cargo ships" said port waving a datapad, "otherwise you could not participate in the test."

"But flying a fighter is different from flying a freighter," protested Ruby .

"This is certain girl, but you still have the day before you to adapt, moreover we are not there to judge you, even if you fail, you can easily try it againe later after more training aboard a specialized vessel."

The rest of the path was quiet until the small group arrived in front of a metal door

"Very good ladies, I'll let you get to know your new comrades" said port while leaving Ruby and Yang without really knowing what to do, it was finally Yang who spoke first:

"Come on Ruby, it's time to put your best smile and make new friends"

Nevertheless seeing Ruby's pitiful attempt to smile through her nervousness, she could not help but giggle

"Yang, it's not funny !"

"Sorry, is that the head you just make is so..."

Seeing Ruby remained nervous, Yang sighed and put her hand on Ruby's head

"It's okay rub, you're the best gun woman I know and you're even a better pilot than me, there is no chance that these guys do not like you."

"Surely..."

"With a bit of luck, you might even find the love of your life" said Yang with a wink

"Yang" moans Ruby

Without giving her time to continue, Yang opened the door, with a sighing Ruby behind her.

The room was actually very tiny, with just enough room for the 2 bunk beds and the place to walk between them, a bright ceiling light was the only light source in the room.

The room was empty except for a woman in the bed at the bottom right of it

She looks like a Felacatian, although the absence of a tail and the presence of a pair of feline ear on her head showed that she had blood from at least one other species.

She was reading a book in a language that neither Yang nor Ruby could decipher, the woman looked up at their arrival

"Hello" she said in a calm and monotonous voice

"Hi, you must be our new comrade, I am Yang Xiao Long, and here is my sister Ruby Rose."

"Hello, nice to meet you" said Ruby

A moment of silence followed before the Felacatian responds

"I am Blake Beladonna"

"So, is there another person besides us ?" Yang asked, hoping that Blake would socialize with them a little, after all if they were to spend the rest of the war in the same squadron, it would be better if they get along.

"An arkanienne, with a scar in the left eye."

As Yang and Ruby looked at each other wondering what to say, Black sighed before putting down herbook

"And where do you come from ?" she says

"We come from correlia" said Yang, happy that the girl starts talking.

"And where did you come from?" Ruby asked.

-Felacat, in the outer rim.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Yang tapped in her hand, making the two other women jump.

"Well, what if we going to say hello to our fourth partner !"

"I don't think she'll like it," said Black, shaking his head.

"Do not worry, kitten, everyone likes to meet Yang Xiao Long," the blonde replied with a wink, taking her two teammates, forcing them out of the room.

Black first wanted to resist, then she saw Ruby's resigned face and realized that she had been trained by someone who was turbulent, and that it would be faster to follow them than to fight for hours.

While black was in her thoughts, she collided with Yang's back who had suddenly stopped

"What is it Yang ?" Ruby asked confused

"I don't know where this Weiss is"

"..."

"pff"

Seeing black giggled, Ruby looked at her with a slight smile while Yang looked falsely hurt

"And here it is, I just want to socialize and you make fun of me"

"Sorry it was just so ... unexpected"

"Finally, maybe this outing will be nicer than expected," Black thought before moving past the two sisters

"Follow me, she is probably in the simulator room"

"There is a simulator room here" Yang exclaimed

"Of course, how do you want us to train otherwise ?"

"But Captain Port didn't mention anything apart from tomorrow's test" Ruby sighed, making Blake grin a littl.

"The Captain Port is an officer a bit... head in the clouds"

"At least we have a bellabeauty to help us" said Yang with a nod to Blake

"... Yang, how long have you been keeping this one in reserve ?" asked Ruby

"Since blake told us her name," Yang said with a grin on her face while Blake glared at her before walking back to the simulator room.

On the Side of the Temple, there was a room filled with around twenty Flight Simulator.

Several people of many different races were inside, one could see on a giant screen high up in the back of the room that was broadcasting the current battle in the simulators.

"good, the battle has just ended" says Blake

Indeed, the giant screen was showing the debris of the rebel ships destroyed while the Cadets came out of the simulators.

Among the Cadets, a woman with pale skin and white hair, a scar in the left eye and with white pupil while her hand has only 4 fingers, showing that she was an Arkanien, went to them.

"Black," she said, nodding.

"Weiss, this is Yang and her little sister Ruby, they are our new roommates until the test" says Black.

"Hello," said Ruby, raising his hand slightly.

Weiss gave her a cold look for a moment before saying.

"We will be able to get to know each other tomorrow, when you have proved that you are gifted enough to stay with me."

"What's your problem?" Yang exclaimed, making Weiss raise an eyebrow

"My problem is that the majority of the people here are incompetent and it is because of them that we just lost" replied weiss by pointing at the giant screen before leaving.

Yang turned a quizzical look at Blacke.

\- Well, she is not necessarily wrong, most people here think that flying is simple but the majority would be more in their place in the infantry, not that I depreciate the infantry, just that there would be more efficient there, "said black, making the two sisters sighing.

"Yang, and if we were going to train."

"A good idea, I'm just behind you little sister."

* * *

The next day, in the simulator room.

On a platform was a middle-aged man standing in front of a group of about twenty people, each wearing the orange outfit of the Alliance pilots.

"Greeting everyone, for those who don't know it yet, I am colonel ozpin and I would be, with several other officers, your evaluator for this test.

I know that many of you have joined us following our statement.

And I see before me men and women of all races of this galaxy, all united in their desire to fight the tyranny of the empire.

But what I see above all is wasted energy, for no other purpose than the fight against the empire, too focused to destroy to think of building.

You will learn that our goal is not to destroy order, but to create a new one, more just, more equitable.

I know that many of you were not born when the old Republic was there, when the races lived in equality, and maybe none of us will ever see it, but it's not is not for us that we fight, but our children and their children after them."

Colonel Ozpin withdrew, giving way to a blonde woman wearing glasses in addition of an air of severity that sent chills in each of the cadets present.

-Hello, I'm the commander Glynda Goodwitch, I'll be the one who will send you the information and your operator during this simulation, well now everyone had receive a datapad before entering, I would like you to head to the simulator with the same number indicate on it, your designation will be "hunter" followed by the number of your simulator, further instruction will be given to you once inside.

"Good luck sis" says yang with a wink before heading to her simulator

Ruby looked one last time at Yang before entering Simulator 9 with a sigh.

Ruby smiled as she started her fighter, being surrounded by mechanics was where she felt best, here only the mechanics was present. She no longer needed to pay attention to other people, to have to pay attention to the way she spoke, to behave. She honestly could not understand how her sister could so much like to chat with others. For her, it was only in a ship that she could really feel comfortable.

After a few minutes of waiting, the simulator screen lit up, revealing about twenty other fighters, Z-95 Headhunter, all waiting in what looked like the hangar of a cruiser.

"For all the cadets, the simulation will start soon, get ready."

As soon as the voice of the commander goodwitch disappeared, an alarm sounded in the ship and a voice echoed through the hangar.

"To all ships, forward"

At the same time, the twenty Z-95 fly off.

While her fighter was coming out of the hangar, Ruby could see an asteroid field close to the ship while her radar was displaying several enemy fighter squadrons on approach.

"To all the hunters here the commander goodwitch , your objective is to hold for 20 minutes, the time that the cruiser can pass in hyper-space, you are alone, and the cruiser's turbolaser are too damaging to help you, good luck hunter squadron, and may the force be with you. "

"Great" thought Ruby, dropped in the middle of a battle with almost no training, without a squadron leader and outnumbered, really great.

As she sees the Imperial fighter flying towards the rebel group, a smile involuntarily appeared on Ruby's face.

"Here we go."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Simulation

* * *

Inside the simulator room on Yavin 4, a giant screen showed a battle taking place in an asteroid field. The battle was being analyzed by several alliance officers, including the Colonel Opzpin and Commander Glynda.

"I have a tie fighter just behind me, I need aiaagh..."

"It's the 5th to be destroyed" said Glynda with a frown, making Ozpin smile

"Come on dear, do not be too hard with this young people, I think there resists pretty well, it's already been 7 minutes."

"I know that, but we already lack pilot, if we can't find more quickly..."

"Give them time Glynda."

"Time is what we lack most my colonel."

"I did not talk about giving them months to train, just wait for the end of the simulation, I have a good feeling with this group."

* * *

At the same time, in the simulators, the situation deteriorated rapidly.

Weiss's fighter was closely following a Tie fighter, sailing nimbly between the shots, weiss saw the imperial fighter pass over a holey asteroid, giving her an idea.

She decelerated slightly and passed through the asteroid's hole, sailing with agility and exiting just after seeing the tie fighter past her. She put her Z-95 right behind him and fired a short salvo, blowing up the imperial fighter and bringing weiss to breathe a sigh of relief.

She took advantage of this respite to take a look at the battle in progress, the result giving her a grimace.

The battle was naturally against them, but it was even worse than she thought. The Imperial fighter had destroyed a quarter of their own, but, most importantly, they had become dangerously close to the cruiser, practically at shooting range.

The remaining rebel fighters tried somehow to regroup in a semblance of formation to protect the cruiser.

As Weiss began to accelerate, she caught a glimpse of an imperial fighter's green shot just behind her, she instantly shift all the power to the shields.

"Here hunter 16, I have two fighter behind me in the 2B quadrant, I need help," said Weiss as she tried somehow to lose the two imperial fighter by sneaking alongside the asteroids, succeeding in destroying one by passing just between two big asteroid.

But despite these attempts, she could not lose the last Tie fighter.

"As if I am going to fail here and now in a stupid simulator," Weiss said to herself while concentrating all her energy to avoid being targeted by the tie fighter, masterfully avoiding a volley of shot by an acrobatic pirouette, when she saw her pursuer exploded, destroyed by several red shots, and heard a juvenile voice.

"Hey hunter 16, here hunter 9, no need to thank me."

"I can't believe it, it's this dolt who saved me ?!" thought weiss, recognizing Ruby's voice.

"Hey Weiss, I think we should go join the others now."

"I already know that, no need to tell me."

"Okay okay, no need to get upset, take a position on my left wing that we can go"

With a sigh, Weiss obeying hoping she can finish this simulation without descended

* * *

Not far from there, Yang was also in trouble, literally. She sailed in the midst of the empire fighter, sticking to them as much as possible so that other hunters could not fire without hitting their allies.

It was a dangerous maneuver, but it kept her alive ... until then.

Although several Tie Fighter carcasses testify to her effectiveness, the number of Tie fighter remaining in the area was now too small for the blonde to continue her show, and many were already trying to sneak behind her.

Yang's smile grows as she feels the adrenaline spread in her body, exacerbating her senses

"Come on sweeties, I'll show you how we do it."

"Hunter 7, here hunter 20, move to the left, I come here to support you"

Yang recognized blake's voice and take a look in the direction she indicates but did not see anything, be it with the naked eye or on her sensor, moreover the space was clear until the asteroid and the Tie fighter would have time to take her down 10 times if no help came. So she had two choices, the first was to stay there and try to destroy all Imperial hunters by relying on her abilities, with a good chance of failing, or bet on a call being perhaps a trap set by the instructors for the test.

The thought made Yang smile, she had always liked bet.

"Copy that blakie, I'm counting on you" said the blonde pilot by turning her fighter towards the destination.

her fighter sailing as best she could through the imperial fire avoiding most and her shield absorbing the others, but this situation would not last long, the shield weakening a little more every moment.

"Hunter 20, if you have to help me, it's now or never" said yang feeling her end approaching fast.

There was a few seconds of silence, then from one of the asteroids a Z-95 fighter emerged followed by an Imperial Tie fighter.

"Sorry hunter 7, I did not manage to get rid of that one in time"

Yang let out a sigh of relief before redirecting to the blake's fighter

"No problem, I take care of him, and you take care of mine, okay ?"

"That the plan"

The two Fighter were getting closer at high speed when yang suddenly had an idea

"Hunter 20, I have the idea of the century, when I'll tell you turn to the left you turn immediately, OK?"

"What are you going to do?" Blake asked, hesitation in her voice.

-You will see, trust me, when I say 3, you turn.

"...I hope you know what you're doing"

Yang did not answer, just accelerating her fighter

the two Z-95 were approaching etch other at high speed, sailing between the imperial firing, it was only a few hundred meters away when yang began her countdown

1...

"This better work, Yang"

2...

"I never fail, kitten" replied Yang

3... now!

At the signal the two fighter each turned to a different side, confusing the imperial pursuing them, and not giving them time to move to avoid the hunter who arrived from behind blacke who crashed on one of Yang's pursuers while the other Tie fighter moved away as best they could in all directions and breaking their formation

Meanwhile Yang and Blacke figthers headed together over the scattered imperials, destroying several before their last four fighter regrouped into a formation.

"Ok hunter 20, said Yang, only this 4 and we can join the others at the cruiser"

"Copy that hunter 7," Blake began, "we need to ...

But before she could finish her sentence, two Imperial fighters exploded with near-perfect timing, and two rebels Z-95 chased down the last two Tie fighter.

"Here hunter 9, it looks like you've already replaced me Yang"

"Ruby, it's nice to see you !" exclaimed the blonde

"Same here," Ruby replied as the Tie fighter she was pursuing exploded under the fire of her own fighter

Not far away weiss was destroying the last imperial fighter who had pursued Yang

"Ok" said ruby, hunter 7 and hunter 20, on my right wing, hunter 16 on my left, we have to join the cruiser

"Copy that hunter 9"

"Received 5 on 5»

"I'm right behind you"

* * *

Closer to the cruiser, an impressive amount of debris was present as a fighter moved at an equally impressive speed, chasing the imperial with what seemed like a disconcerting ease.

Behind it, another rebelle fighter tried somehow to follow the skilful fighter.

Jaune sighed, since the beginning of the battle he had done little more than follow this fighter. In itself it was not a bad thing, it probably kept him alive until then, but he doubted he would be able to join the ranks of the rebellion as a full-fledged pilot by just following the other.

"Hunter 2, here hunter 17, we have two Z-95 fighter pursued by imperial at 10 o'clock" said jaune

"Received 5 on 5 hunters 17, I'm heading towards them," replied Hunter 2, turning sharply towards the two Z-95 pursued by the 4 Imperial Tie fighter

At the same time that Jaune was turning his fighter to follow Hunter 2, a map of the battlefield was being made in her head. It was probably the only ability he was proud of, being able to visualize any 3-dimensional battlefield instantly.

He could see that hunter 2, or Pyrrha, she was one of his roommates and he recognized her voice after all, easily destroyed two of the hunters and as she was chasing the third, the fourth slipped behind her

"this is my chance", he thought, directing his Z-95 behind the Tie fighter who chased Pyrrha, and waited for Pyrrha to lock her own target, because he knew that at that moment and for a short time, Pyrrha's fighter would be almost immobile, just like her pursuer.

And Pyrrha did not disappoint him, it only took her a few seconds to lock the enemy fighter, and while the Tie fighter behind her stopped for a moment his maneuvers, probably for correctly lock Pyrrha, Jaune seized the opportunity and fired almost at the same time as her teammate, the two of them destroying the two imperial fighter.

"Thanks hunter 17, he did not want to let me go that one," said Pyrrha

"No problem, hunter 2," said Jaune, glancing at the two fighters he had just rescued and seeing that they had not been idle, blocking an attack of several enemy bombers heading for the cruiser.

"Hey hunter 2, thank you for helping us, if you want, renny and me we let you help us defeat this idiots too," said an energetic voice, that Jaune recognized as Nora's voice, another of his roommates.

"Here hunter 12, what hunter 11 meant by that, is that she thanks you for helping us and asks you if you could also help us with the bombers so that we join the others as soon as possible" said the calm voice of Ren, the last one of his roommates.

"Yeah yeah, all the same," replied Nora

"No problem hunter 12, we're almost here" said Jaune while giggling

Thus, the two fighter arrived quickly and destroyed the remaining bombers

Jaune took advantage of the pause to glance at the cruiser, fearing that a group of imperials had destroyed the cruiser while there was busy

Fortunately, it was far from the case.

* * *

Coco made her fighter sail between the shots of the imperial, confident that her three partners would be more than able to cover her as she targeted one of the two bombers, firing a long salvo, destroying it and immediately put herself behind the second imperial bomber

From the corner of her eye, she could see her comrades quickly eliminate the fighters protecting her target, showing a smile on her face before firing on the last bomber destroying it in an impressive explosion

The three people who currently accompany her were velvet, fox and yatsuashi, the same three who had accompanied her for half of her life, and three of the best pilote she knew.

Coco could see the Imperials regrouping outside shooting range, probably to launch a final attack before the cruiser went into hyper-space, she took advantage of this rest to take a look at the battlefield.

"Interesting," she said, noting that the others rebelle fighter had gone much better than she thought...

Out of the 20 rebel fighter, there were 12 left including herself and those accompanying her, there where divided into 3 groups of 4, and were already heading towards the cruiser

"Here hunter 4, to all the fighter still in combat, report"

"Here hunter 9 with hunter 16, 7 and 20, reporting" replied a young and enthusiastic voice

"Hum, here hunter 17 with hunter 2, hunter 11 and hunter 12, reporting" answered another voice, more hesitant

Coco smile, they seemed like they already had someone to guide them

"Very good, hunter 9, on my left wing, hunter 17 takes my right wing, form a defensive line in front of the cruisers, defend it at all costs"

"Copy that," the two young pilots answered in unison, and as they placed themselves on their respective positions, the imperials arrived with one last attack with all their remaining strength.

As soon as they were at shooting range, the rebels fighter fired with amazing timing, easily destroying the shieldless Tie fighter while the riposte of the imperial was blocked by the rebel shield, which though weak were fully focused at the front of their fighter giving them better protection

After passing the last Tie hunter, Coco passed her fighter behind an Imperial on , quickly destroying it with a salvo before diving to avoid two enemy hunters who had decided to try to destroy her, although the two imperial pilots did not not last long as velvet and fox, which both arrive from the opposite, destroyed the two Tie fighter pursuing coco in a flash of fire.

Around her, the battle was going pretty well for the cadets, all the survivors were good pilots, very good pilots even, and they would definitely manage to hold the line to the time limit.

That's when she sees at the other end of the cruiser a Z-95 with one of its engines on fire

"Here hunter 17, I was hit by a squadron of fighter accompanying a bomber, I send the coordinate, I repeat..."

Then the ship of jaune glowed as it explodes, without allowing him to finish its sentence.

Inwardly, Coco thanked the young man for providing them with the coordination before being destroyed.

"Here hunter 4, hunter 2, 11 and 12 will destroy this squadron, the other stay with me, it is the last wave of hunter before the cruiser passes in hyper space."

"Copy that hunter 4, we are with you"

* * *

Back in the simulation room, saying that the instructors were shocked would be an understatement

"If I had been told that one day I would see this test be successful..." said Captain Port

"It would seem that my presentiment was right, my dear Glynda," added ozpin, drinking sip of his coffee.

Indeed, answered the latter with a sigh, this test was designed to be more and more difficult, before becoming almost impossible after the first 15 minutes.

To succeed was an exploit, even more with so little loss.

"Ha, it looks like the cadets have finally succeeded" Port noticed as the cruiser passed in hyper space and the main screen showed Victory

"Indeed," said Ozpin, looking to the simulator with a smile, at the young cadets coming out of the simulators, some with a sad expression on their faces, others radiating happiness.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 : The silken asteroide

* * *

In the wild space, silken system, hidden rebel base.

Coco watched the cantina with a bored look, it had been two weeks since she and the other members of her new squadron had officially become full-fledged pilots of the alliance.

She had become the leader of the new squadron, the hunter squadron, with the rank of captain.

At her table was the same four people she was used to, and who were now her new comrades.

She had found herself embarking on a game of pazaak, and took advantage of the time her friends took to play to look more carefully at the cantina.

On her left was fox or hunter 2, a red-haired, dark-skinned miraluka. Fox was her oldest friend, with whom she had grown up and who had followed her for years, of the calm kind, he was her best friend.

In front of coco was hunter 3, Velvet, a human she had met during her teenage years. Velvet had been raised by Lepi merchants, the young woman had long brown hair and constantly had a smile on her face. She was a bit of the heart of their little group, always there to help, laugh or shoot an Imperial fighter.

On Velvet's right was Yatsuashi, also known as Hunter 4, a human, but much larger than the average one, with slanted eyes. He was born and had grown up on coruscant where Coco had met him while she accompanied her father there for a business trip. The stoic giant was the last member of the group, Coco having met him in her late teens.

In one corner of the room she could see the Xiao Long and Rose Sisters, respectively Hunter 8 and 5, assembled a blaster that she could swear to be illegal, although that should not surprise her. The two sisters had become the squadron's assigned smugglers, providing all that was more or less legal to the other pilots. In fact, Coco was certain they already had a good smuggling experience.

Continuing her inspection she noticed the shape of hunter 7, Blake, in one of the dark corners of the cantina. The young Felacatianne was reading an authentic old book that Coco could not even understand the title. The girl was usually silent, even though she was often dragged by Yang and Ruby in more than doubtful schemes, like this time when she was forced to hack the computer system of the base to pass cookies discreetly.

This brought her to the fourth person of Lieutenant Rubis's squad: Weiss Schnee  
Hunter 6 was the surprise of this squadron. To tell the truth, Coco would never imagine having to work with an Arkadienne within the rebellion. Obviously, she had many resemblances with those that Coco had already met, she was haughty, arrogant and cold with most people, but she also genuinely cared about her teammates, was not racist and hated the empire and her own government for what they did.

Her gaze continued to roam the room until it fell on a blonde head, jaune.  
Jaune was the squadron's other lieutenant, operating under the nickname of Hunter 9. Jaune was a special case. He was certainly not the best pilot, but wear his heart on his sleeve, was dedicated to the rebel cause and, coco was forced to admit, he was an excellent strategist.

Next to him was phyrra Nikos, also called hunter 10, a mandaloriene, and maybe the best pilot of this squadron. The redhead had, as always her hair in a ponytail, her expression calm and slightly smiling. To tell the truth, Coco was ready to bet that she had a crush on jaune, although phyrra would rather die than admit it, and jaune was too dense to notice.

And speaking of a calm person, it led to hunter 11 or Lie Ren of his real name. Lie Ren was a Lorrdian, which made him rarely speak, and never for nothing. He had long black hair and could easily be considered one of the most handsome men in the base. And while most considered him calm and unsociable, there was a person on the base who spoke the Lorrdian's body language and who considered him talkative: Nora Valkyrie

Nora Valkyrie was the last pilot of the Hunter Squadron, flying under the name of Hunter 12. Nora was a Zeltron, and probably the most active person that Coco had the opportunity to meet. The young redhead was the very definition of hyperactive, and the cause of most of Ren's problems, even though one like the other were definitely excellent and completely inseparable pilot.

"Coco, your turn", said velvet

Sighing, Coco glanced at her, and winced as she noticed that the game was clearly not in her favor.  
As she pondered a way out, she noticed an alliance soldier coming towards her out of the corner of her eye.

"Captain Coco?" He asked while salute her  
"Yes?"  
" General Jan Dodanna wants to meet you"  
"understood," said Coco, standing up  
"It looks like our captain is scared to lose," said Velvet smiling  
"You should thank this brave soldier Velvet, he just saved you from a humiliating defeat," Coco replied with a smile before leaving.

* * *

General Jan Dodonna observed the space vacuum from the command post of the station. He was already of an advanced age, as his white hair testified, but staying perceptive and leading his troops just as effectively as when he was younger.

It had been several months since he had installed this secret base in the area and until now he had managed to avoid the imperial detection.

"Captain Coco reporting, sir."

Dodonna turned to see the young captain of the Z-95 of the base. Coco was a brown-haired correlienne and had a model silhouette. According to her records, she had engaged in the imperial army until the empire pushed its anti-human policy too far and eventually sent back her best friend, Fox Alister.

"Relax Captain, and take a look at these reports," said Dodonna, handing her a datapad.  
Coco relaxed, and grabbed the datapad handed to her by the general. She felt herself frown as she read it

"It seems that a ship has arrived in the system, a big one to that," says Coco while returning to the general his datapad.  
"Indeed, and I would like you to lead the fighter of the base to see what it is all about," said the general, making Coco wince.  
"This is likely to be a complicated general, we have just returned from patrol and the hunters are still under review and replenishment, and I would also like to avoid getting into a possible battle with half reliable fighters."  
"I understand captain, with a little luck, it will be just a lost ship, and in any case this base is well enough hidden to avoid being detected too quickly."  
"Thank you sir", said Coco saluting the general.

* * *

While Coco was chatting with the general, in the cantina of the base, ruby and yang were on another of their plans...

The two sisters were working around what looked like a Tenloss DXR-6 disrupter, a highly illegal weapon. However, the weapon was noticeably bigger than normal.

"Ruby, why dad would make us pass a disrupter Tenloss, himself hate this weapon?" yang asked, inspecting the weapon  
"Wait, there is a message with it", answered ruby while taking a datapad

"My dear daughters, I have to leave for a delivery that will probably last long enough, and I cannot take zwei with me, so I send him to you so that you can take care of him, the food it needs also been attached "

It was at this moment, as if he was waiting for the right moment, that the Tenloss disrupter barked, making everyone in the room jump.

"By the force, look at that Ren, it's a weapon that barked" exclaimed Nora pulling on the clothes of the lorrdien  
"I'I don't think that it's the weapon that is barking, Nora," Ren said quietly.

Indeed, Yang take the disrupter, and pressing a button hiding on the side of the gun that opened the end of the rifle leaving a black and white corgi out, very happy to get out of there.

"Ho my god, he's cut!" Exclaimed weiss as she quickly approached, gaining some strange glances from the other pilots present into the room.  
"Well, I was not expecting tha...", Ruby started before she saw blake on a table, seemingly ready to face the biggest threat of her life, except that the threat in question was no more than 20 centimeters high.  
"Ok, that is surprising", said Yang looking at Blake as Zwei quietly approached the felacatian.  
"No, g go elsewhere, do not get near me", Blake screamed in a shaky voice as Zwei stared at her blankly

Coco entered the cantina a few minutes later to see that her whole squadron less blake had started to pamper a little corgi, all in all really cute.

"Alright everyone, your attention please", said coco, clapping her hands to attract the attention of her pilots. Everyone got up, although she noticed from the corner of her eye that ruby was still holding the little corgi in her arms.

Coco took a breath before continuing

"Tomorrow morning at 7 am, I want everyone in the briefing room, we will have to make an inspection on a vessel that has just arrived in the area, any questions?"

Seeing no one seemed to have any, Coco salute them before she sat down at the pazaak table she'd left earlier, and sighed as she noticed that her Comrade seemed to have left the game in suspense while waiting for her.

But, as she looked again at her own game, she almost dropped her cards of amazement, when she noticed that the sum of her cards was equal to 20, the perfect sum to the pazaak.

She glanced around to find whoever had changed her cards before she felt a hand resting on her shoulder.  
Turning around, she saw fox wink at her with a smirk before returning to sit down.

At the same time, an animated discussion took place at the other end of the cantina.

"No no and no, I refuse that this dirty beast sleeps in our dormitory", says blake crossing his arms  
"Zwei is not dirty, replied ruby, he does not mind taking his bath, right?"  
"Woof!"  
"No way, and I'm sure weiss and agree with me, aren't it weiss?" Replied blake, turning to weiss  
"who is the cutest little dog in the galaxy, yes it's you," said weiss pampering zwei

In desperation, Blake wanted to ask for Yang's help, but the blonde shitty smile made her give up that idea.

"Very well, he can stay, but he has interest to stay away from my bed," said blacke understanding that she had lost this battle.  
"Yeah!" Yelled ruby and yang at the same time

* * *

Meanwhile, in the imperial destroyer "Wrath of the Emperor"

Captain Vratan Kriff looked at the asteroid field in front of him from his destroyer's deck. Vratan was a man in his early thirties, wearing a perfectly clean uniform and a rigid posture.

Moff Derliff had ordered him to find and destroy a base that the rebels would have set up in the area, but until now, they could not be found.

"How is advancing the scouting of the asteroid field?" he asked his bridge help, an old space wolf who answered by the name of kerlik and who had served in the imperial navy since at least the creation of the empire, if the wrinkles on his face were an indication of his age.

"Still no news of the probes, but it is not very surprising, given the size of the asteroid field", answered the old man.  
"I want the fighters to go helpin...," began Vratan before being interrupted by a young lieutenant.

"Sir, we found something", she said giving him a datapad

Vratan took the datapad and smiled seeing the results, the rebels were indeed there, and soon, they would all be dead  
"Very good, I want us to follow this transition, the base of the rebels are probably in this sector", he says, giving back the datapad to the lieutenant.

Behind him, derlik sighed in frustration

"I do not understand why they even bothered to rebel, they should know that only the empire has the strength to protect the order in the galaxy," he said  
"honestly, I don't know and I don't care, it's probably the best chance to get a promotion, maybe even to get into the good grace of moff Derliff", replied his captain, advancing towards the windows of the ship

Derlik sighed again, but for a different reason this time, most of the officers nowadays were like Vratan, consumed by ambition, yet the empire still seemed better than the rebellion. After all, he had seen the horror of the clone war and understood that war, no matter how fair, was worse than peace, even the worst of all.

So he silently prepared himself for the destruction of the rebel base, praying the force to have pity of the rebels, because the empire would have none.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 : First fight

* * *

General Dodonna was working in his offices for several hours now, watching reports coming from different corners of the galaxy, and honestly, they were not good, really not.

Admittedly, the formal declaration of rebellion had brought them an unprecedented number of volunteers, equipment, and vessels, but countless others were paying for it with their lives.

Any planet that had seceded from the empire was under the fire of the imperial fleet, and although some of them were still "free", they would sooner or later fall under the ruthless war machine of the empire, the rebel alliance simply could not save them.

As Dodonna continued to read the reports, a young lieutenant rushed into his offices, pale and panting.

"Sir, an Imperial destroyer has been detected, he is heading towards us."

"How long do we have," said the general, getting up

"Approximately an hour," answered the young man.

"Put the base on high alert, I want the fighters ready to leave yesterday, and contact the alliance command so that they send us reinforcements," Dodonna replied as he headed for the command center, praying silently the force to help them.

* * *

Silence reigned in the hunter squadron's dormitory, the loudest sound that could be heard was Yang's slight snoring, perfectly synchronized with Zwei's one, when suddenly the alarm began to resound.

"Everyone to your battle station, this is not a drill, I repeat, everyone to your battle station, this is not a drill" the voice of the base operator sounded between two alarms.

The alarm immediately made the dormitory enter a state of barely controlled anarchy.

"What is happening?" asked Jaune as he grabbed his helmet

"I think we're going to get our first fight," said Nora happily with a pat on the back

"No time to discuss, everyone in the hangar, now!" Cried Coco, already in her pilot's uniform, motioning them to hurry from the dormitory door.

In a few minutes, the rebel pilots were in the hangar, settling in their fighters with the help of the technicians of the rebel alliance.

"Okay , your attention 30 seconds guys," said Coco through the comlink of the fighter, "we have a star-destroyer of the empire who heading to the base and the general ordered us to save time until the reinforcements of the alliance arrives to evacuate the base, the station will provide us support with the turbo-lasers and proton torpedoes, any questions?"

"Yes, did you say only one destroyer?" Jaune asked hesitantly.

"Yes, why?"

"I think I have a plan, Captain ..."

* * *

Imperial Destroyer "wrath of the emperor", command bridge.

Vratan Kriff, Captain of the Wrath of the Emperor, watched the rebel base on the destroyer's sensors as well as its own fighters advancing towards it.

He had deployed 48 Tie fighters at the front followed by the 12 Tie bombers carried by his ship.

Thus, the fighters would protect the bombers until they reach the rebel base and destroy the proton torpedo launchers, the only real threat to its destroyer.

"Sir," said his second kerlik, approaching him, "we don't detect any rebel fighter, which is strange, they are probably preparing an ambush."

"I know, but given the size of the base, it is likely that there is no more than one squadron, our fighter will do the job," answered Vratan, "just made sure we stay out of reach of the torpedo launcher until our bomber destroys them."

"Understood sir," said Kerlik, going towards the ship's monitors.

While the "wrath of the emperor" was waiting outside the fire range of the rebel torpedoes, the imperial fighters were advancing in formation towards the rebel base, preparing for the attack.

It was when the base of the rebel alliance was in sight of the imperials that the rebels went into action.

From the asteroids above the Tie fighters emerged 8 Z-95 rebels who rushed on the Imperial bombers, destroying 8 and continuing without stopping, quickly sailing behind several asteroids, half of the imperial fighters behind them.

On the Bridge of the destroyer, Vratan was growing angry.

"Can someone explain to me how the rebels manage to sneak behind our fighters?!" He shouted at one of his deck officers.

"They have been hiding on an asteroid and were waited for our force to pass, they probably calculated the most likely passage of our fighter," the lieutenant answered.

"We have to protect the bombers at all cost, tell the fighters to put themselves in a defensive position around them, and bring the "Wrath of the Emperor" to the limit of the fire-range of the rebel torpedoes, I want our turbo-laser turrets to protect our pilots as much as possible."

"Copy tha..." began one of the sign before being interrupted by kerlik

"Sir, we have detected an explosion on an asteroid near the fighters pursuing the rebels.

"I lost contact with Squadron 2 and 3, Sir," said another lieutenant, responsible for supervising fighters.

"Wait, I detect the rebels fighters coming back, they are approaching the bombers!" shouted the officer of the sensors.

"Told the fighter to stay in formation, they must protect the bombers at all cost, the "wrath of the emperor" is more than enough to destroy the rebels fighters as soon as they arrive in our firing range.

"Sir, Something is wrong, a rebel squadron is normally composed of 12 fighters, where are the 4 missing?" Pointed out kerlik

"I don't know, and that why I want the hunters to form a protective bubble around our bomber," replied Vratan

"It is practically condemning our pilots to death, they will have no space for maneuver," says Kerlik making Vratan grimace

"They are acceptable losses..."

* * *

At the same time in the rebel fighters, Coco coordinated the second part of the plan.

"Hunter 9, phase one finish, start phase two."

Behind the imperial destroyer, hanging on an asteroid, 4 hunters of the rebel alliance were waiting for this signal

"Okay guys, gradually increase the power of the engines, the destroyer must not detect us until the last moment" said Jaune

"Copy that," answered his 3 other comrades of his group in unison before launching the engines of their fighters.

As the asteroid slowly deviated from its trajectory, the other 8 Z-95s of the squadron were heading towards the bombers.

Their shot take down several Tie fighters, but none could touch the bombers, perfectly protected by the imperials Tie fighters

The destroyer's Turbo-laser batteries then came into action, spilling a steady stream of death to the rebel fighters, forcing them to disperse.

"Hunter 1, I think we caught their attention," Ruby pointed out as she sailed her ships between the asteroids.

"Indeed, continue to put pressure on the bombers, they must not suspect our true objective," answered Coco.

"Understood."

At the same moment, on the asteroid approaching the imperial destroyer, Jaune and his comrades were waiting for the right moment to separate from the huge rock floating in space.

"Jaune, I think the destroyer will soon spot us," says Pyrrha

"Yup, we just got scanned by their sensor," added Nora

"Well, it looks like it's time for us to go," says Jaune while he was detaching his fighter from the asteroid, using it to stay out of sight of the destroyer's turrets.

As Jaune's group withdrew, the rest of the hunter squadron was doing everything it could to keep the bombers from reaching the base.

Ruby, along with Yang, Blake and Weiss were preparing for a new pass on the bombers as they got closer and closer to the base, practically at fire range.

"Come on, this is our last chance before the bombers can hit the base, make it count!" said ruby by the comlink

The 4 fighters made their way to the group of imperial ships, their laser cannon firing continuously at the enemy fighters, inflicting several casualties but being unable to touch the bombes

Before the group of ruby redirects themselves to the base for a last line of defense, the awaited message arrived

"To all hunters, started the final phase of the plan" said Coco by the comlink

Immediately the hunter squadron ignored the imperial fighters and bomber remaining to head as one towards the destroyer

Coco's group was in the center, ruby's group was on the right, and the group of jaune was positioned on the left wing, after arriving out of the destroyer's range.

"All right, ladies and gentlemen, asteroid impact in 20 seconds"

* * *

Aboard the imperial destroyer "wrath of the emperor"

"Sir, the asteroid will strike us in less than 20 seconds," says one of the Lieutenant

"It doesn't matter, our shields can hold a simple asteroid" answers Vratan as he watched the rebel fighters remain just at the limit of the firing range of the turbo-laser of his destroyer, as if they were waiting for something.

But even the rebels couldn't be idiots enough to believe that a single asteroid would destroy an imperial destroyer

"Lieutenant, launch a new scan on the asteroid, this time focus on energy levels" ordered Kerlik next to vratan

"Is something wrong?" asked Vratan to his second

"I hope I'm wrong..."

"Sir, the scans indicate an important energy source on the asteroid, the readings correspond to...to a proton torpedo," said the lieutenant in charge of the sensor, making the two officers pale

"We have to get out of here now, all the engines at 100 percent, and recall our fighters!" cried Vratan

"If we do this we will be in the fire range of the torpedo launcher of the rebel base, and the bombers alone will be destroyed by the defenses of the base," replied one of the deck officers

"...it's too late anyway" say Kerlik, seeing the asteroid arriving at the destroyer

* * *

Hunter Squadron

"Wohooo, this, is a nice explosion" shouted nora by comlink

"And it looks like the destroyer lost it shields in addition to the engines" added Jaune

"Perfect, all hunters with me, aim first at the command post and sensors" says coco

Immediately, all hunter squadron fighters were accelerating, knowing that even though the ship was seriously damaging the imperials that maneuvered the turbo-laser batteries were probably still alive and ready to fight

This thought was quickly confirmed when the star destroyer's batteries went into action, forcing the squadron to engage evasive maneuvers

For a moment, one could have thought that the destroyer would manage to keep the rebel fighters away, at least until the Tie Fighter return, but the hope of the Imperial was quickly shattered, by none other than ruby.

Ruby, while her fighter had just destroyed one of the destroyer's batteries, glimpsed a passage that the rest of the squadron had created by destroying the laser cannon of the imperial destroyer and immediately rallied her squad.

"Hunter 6-7-and 8 on my wing, there's an opening on the right side of the destroyer" said ruby, bringing her fighter to the indicated location, while the rest of her squad joined her

"To all hunter squadron, protect hunter 5 squad" said coco, after noticing ruby's movement.

Immediately, as the ruby group slid onto the side of the imperial destroyer, the rest of the squadron began to destroy every laser turret that targeted them.

Thus, because of the shape of the destroyer, the turrets on the left side could not fire on ruby's group that was flying close to the destroyer, and the turrets on the right side were ruthlessly destroyed by the rest of the hunter squadron

It took only a handful of seconds for ruby and her group to launch their salvo on the shieldless command post and sensors, destroying both.

Almost at the same time, three frigates arrived just outside the asteroid belt

"Hunter 1, I have 3 contacts on my sensors," said velvet

"Ally or enemy" asked coco

"I receive their IFF...they are of the alliance, the reinforcements have just arrived!" exclaimed velvet before another voice comes on the canal

"Hunter Squadron, this is General Dodonna, reinforcements will take over the rest of the imperial force, return to base for debriefings, and good work out there," says the General through the intercom while 2 of the corvette were going against the disorganized imperial fighter, quickly taking them out.

"Copy that, we're going home," said Coco before letting slide a sigh of relief that it was finally over.

"I think our first battle has gone better than expected," says Nora

"I agree, no major damage on any fighter, our objective has been met, and most importantly, we are all alive" added Pyhrra, before hearing a strange noise on the comlink

"Hug, if we could hurry, I think I'll throw up" says Jaune provoking the laughter of the rest of the squadron"

"A problem, vomit boy?" said yang between two bursts of laughter, as the squadron approached the base.

* * *

Rebel base, command post, three hours later

"Thank you for coming so quickly colonel ozpin, I didn't expect reinforcements for several days" said General Dodonna

"My ships were already on patrol in the area, although I must admit I'm impressed by your pilots, destroying an imperial destroyer is no easy task." Ozpin answers by watching the carcass of the imperial star-destroyer drifting in space, surrounded by two rebel corvettes, who were robbing him of all that might be useful.

"That reminds me, weren't you on Yavin 4 for the supervision of the new recruits?" asked Dodonna

"I thought that other people could do an even better job, and I decided to return to active duty, which reminds me, had you already found a new posting for Hunter Squadron? Asked ozpin

"Not yet, why?"

"I would like to borrow the squadron, I will soon conduct an operation in imperial territory, and I am sorely short of pilots and fighters"

Dodonna reflects for a moment on the pros and cons of the proposal, knowing that if he accepts, he could later ask for a favor from ozpin, but he could also lose an entire squadron of good pilots.

Finally, he decides that it was worth it, since ozpin was a promising officer, and that he wouldn't need the hunter squadron for at least several months for any operation.

"All right, Colonel, I entrust you with the hunter squadron, take good care of them"

"You have my word" replied Ozpon with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 : The beginning

* * *

Outer rim, 2 months after the battle of the silken asteroids.

A group of 4 Z-95 rebels were heading towards a Nebulon B frigate, itself surrounded by another Nebulon B frigate, 3 Corvette corelienne CR90 and 3 Republic frigates dating back from the clone war.

On board the rebel fighters were ruby, yang, blake and weiss just returning from a patrol in the system

"beacon, this is rubie leader, asking permission to land" asked ruby

"Received Rubie leader, cleared to land at bay A2." replied the beacon operator

"Understood, over and out."

Piloting her fighter was now like a second nature to ruby, which allowed her to rethink what had happened during the last two months  
After winning the battle of the silken's asteroids, the hunter squadron was placed under the command of Colonel Ozpin, who immediately reorganized the squadron.

Until then, the hunter squadron was mostly on its own, the rebel alliance not really having the time to take care of a mostly functional squadron, while others could hardly be considered as a military force.

The colonel Ozpin, on the other hand, was very interested in their squadron, which he decided to divide in 3 sections.

Coffe section, with coffe 1 being coco, coffe 2 velvet, coffe 3 fox and coffe 4 yatsuashi

Ruby section, with rubie 1 being ruby, rubie 2 being weiss, rubie 3 blacke and rubie 4 yang

And finally juniper section with juniper 1 being jaune, juniper 2 being pyrrha, juniper 3 nora and juniper 4 ren

Coco still remained the squadron leader, but the section division allowed for a better clarification of each role.

In addition to the reorganization, Ozpin supplied the Z-95 with concussion missiles designed to fill the fighter's missile launchers, which had previously been empty

After the first week spent travelling to their next destinations while reorganizing and resupplying the squadron, they had spent the following months fighting the Imperials in several small skirmishes, destroying several depots and imperial base on the outer rim.

After its fighter has gently settled, ruby felt the Beacon go in hyper space, 2 days before the scheduled date.

As she and the rest of her section exited their fighter, she spotted coco approaching her.

Captain", she said, "We're already leaving?"

"Apparently we have received orders from the rebel high command in person to join other fleets of the alliance in the Keldrath sector," replied Coco

Ruby raised her eyebrows as coco response, after all the rebel fleets were mostly independent and operated very rarely together, since in practice they belonged to their respective leaders, who have pledged allegiance to the rebel alliance.

In fact, Ruby had never worked with any other fleet and could count on the fingers of her hand the number of times that the high command had directly intervened in Colonel Ozpin's decisions.

"Well, debriefing in 1 hour, and no delay because of zwei this time" added coco before leaving

As the ruby section advanced in the corridors, Coco's words continued to resound in the ruby's head, which couldn't help but ask.

"Did someone hear anything about what's going on" she asked the rest of her squad

"Nope" replied blacke

"Nothing" added weiss

"nada..." said Yang

"I knoooow," said Nora, appearing behind the group, startling them.

"what the..., Nora ! How the hell did you get here, and where is Ren," asked Yang, referring to the Lorrdian who was always following Nora wherever she went, and help keep her in line.

"Reni is with jaune playing dejarik," Nora replied, pouting

.  
"Right, and about the fleets, you know something?" blake asked while trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Yep," shouted Nora before lowering her voice, waving to the members of the section Rubie leaned near her to hear the rest.

"said to no one but it seems that a big stuff is being prepared against the imperial, it seems that all the rebel fleets are gathering for a huge assault"

"Do you know where it will be?" asked weiss

"No, I just know the operation was called "domino operation"

* * *

3 days later, unknown system in the Keldrath sector.

It was a small system, away from all trade routes, so lost in the middle of nowhere that the cartographers of the republic, then those of the empire had never bothered to name it.

In the space between the third and fourth planets, however, there was something that would surely be of great interest to the imperial intelligence.

A small rebel fleet was there, strong of about thirty ships regroup in no less than 7 different fleets.

Most of the ships were rather small, not bigger than frigates with a handful of cruiser, but one of them largely dominated the rest: the Atlas.

The atlas was a providence-class destroyer used by the separatists during the clone war.

Today, it was Admiral Ironwood's flagship.

In the conference room there were 7 different people seated around à round table with a holographic projector in the centre.

Among them were Colonel Ozpin and Admiral Ironwood.

The latter rose and cleared his throat before speaking

"Ladies and gentlemen, you have all been informed of the reason for your presence here, in less than a week we will begin the domino operation. I will now explain exactly what it is and the role of our combined fleet."

Ironwood pressed his datapad, lighting the holoprojector in the centre of the room.

"As you know, we are currently in the Tion cluster, not far from the giblim road," said Ironwood while that a part of the galaxy was highlighted and that the road was emerging.

"Our objective is the Caluula system, has the entrance of the giblim road, if we secure it, we will be able to protect any major attack against Brigia from the galactic south, and we will prevent our forces on dellat from being outflanked " added the admiral as the map would now only focus on a small part of the galaxy.

"How much time will we have to hold," asked Ayala, a Rekk who commanded a group of frigates specialized in rapid action.

"If all goes well, not long, the goal of the domino operation is to show the rest of the galaxy that the empire can be, and will be defeated, if the news of our victory spreads fast enough and enough planet revolts against the empire, we will not have to stay more than 10 standard days after the battle.

"what is our battle plan ?" asked vakyor nirnu, a togruta commanding a pair of cruisers and several frigates

"We will attack within standard 4 days, the system is defended by a single Cardan Class II station, first we will send the fighters of the entire fleet with the frigates, They'll have to protect our bombers from enemy fighters and turrets so he can destroy the base's proton torpedo launchers, the fighters up close while the frigate will provide a long distance support and a safe retreat.

once the proton torpedo luncher destroy, our bomber ans fighter will retreat with the frigate and our cruisers will use their turbo-laser batteries to destroy the station. After that we will begin to disembark the troops of the General Marcus Jarde on the planet"

"And in the event that the imperial counter-attack is stronger than expected and that we are forced to retreat, what is the plan?" asked Ozpin, his word creating the silence in the room

"You think we will lose," asked Vakyo, incredulous.

"I'd rather be careful for nothing than lose everything," Ozpin replied, looking him in the eye  
After several seconds of stifling silence, Ironwood finally spoke.

"If the imperial counter-attack is too important, we will retreat towards Dellat to join our forces there, lets just hope that it doesn't come to that."

The meeting lasted 2 more hours, before the plan was finalized.

"Well, I'll let you tell the news to your men, and may the force be with you," said Ironwood as he stood up with the other rebel leaders, everyone's thinking turn to the battle to come.

* * *

4 hours later, inside the conference room, the pilots of the hunter squadron were all gathered around a holographic table, sitting in a circle while Coco stood in the middle, just finishing explaining the battle plan to the rest of her squadron.

"...then the forces of General Marcus will land on the planet and we will be relegated to a patrol role, questions?"

"What is the authority of the other fleet officers on the squadron?" asked jaune, knowing that politics could play a major role in this kind of thing

"The colonel is not the type to compromise a mission for something as pitiful as politics, we will obey the order of the other fleet captains as well as the colonel's orders as long as they do not endanger the fleet, any other question?" answer Coco

Seeing no one asking any questions, Coco decided to end the briefing and send the pilots back to their quarters to rest for the battle to come.

As the Hunter Squadron marched through the corridors of the Beacon, every pilots could feel the tension in the ship.

It was not another raid against a small imperial installation, but a full-fledged battle, itself part of a galactic campaign, and it showed in the crew.

Each movement was feverish, containing this mix of excitement and fear at the coming of a historical moment, within a few days they would all participate in the greatest naval operation since the end of the clone war, and to that, everyone reacted differently.

In the days that followed Coco, yatsuashi, Fox, pyrrha and Yang spent the majority of their time in the simulator, doing the maximum simulation to be ready the D-day, or just to relax the nerves.

Ren and Black had mostly stayed in their respective dormitories to meditate while Velvet and Ruby had spent their time discussing about everything and nothing, sometimes at a speed that made the rest of the crew wonder what language they spoke.

Weiss for her part was staying with Zwei, who seemed to feel her stress and was doing his best at helping her by being even cuter than usual, a feat in itself.

And the D-Day came quickly, the rebel fleet was in position at the limit of the system.

Inside the ships, each crew member prepared the ship for the battle, the gunners checked the turbo laser batteries, the deck was in a real effervescence while the last minute checks were carried out

Meanwhile, the pilots were preparing their fighters for the coming battle, knowing full well that it would be the first wave of assault.

In the Beacon's fighter hangar the hunter squadron was no exception.

The pilots were on their hunter, modifying tiny details without great importance to ease the nerve, while others preferred meditation or in the case of ruby, a large plate of cookie.

However, all this activity was suddenly interrupted when the ozpin voice resounded in the intercom

"At all personal we're going into hyperspace, we will arrive in the Caluula system in 2 hours, prepare for battle, I repeat..."

There was a moment of silence while the colonel repeat is message before Coco's voice was heard.

"You heard the boss, everyone is getting ready, if you have a religion, it's time to pray," she said as she was heading towards her hunter.

"it's begins" said ruby with excitement, and a hint of fear she was trying her best to hide.

"Indeed," replied jaune as he went towards his hunter

* * *

2 hours later, approaching the Caluula system, Atlas Bridge

"Admiral, we'll be in the system in a few seconds."

"Good, that the fleet stand ready for battle, we'll launch the fighters as soon as we get out of hyperspace," says Ironwood.

"Exit in 3...2...1... Now!"

The moment the fleet entered the system, the sensor officer turned pale looking at his console.

"A Admiral, there is an Imperial destroyer docked at the station," he said, raising Ironwood's eyebrows.

"It's impossible, there shouldn't be imperial ships in the area," he murmured before saying out loud

"Send the fighters, corvettes and bombers as planned, place the cruiser of the fleet with the atlas on the right flank and focus the fire on the destroyer, I want that destroyer between us and the space station.

"copy that" answered his pilot while the bridge was bustling with activity to execute the orders.

meanwhile in the beacon hangar

As the fighter were taking off, Coco's voice resounds in the Comlink

"alright ladies and gentlemen, last minute change, apparently our intelligence service did not do it's homework, so we have an imperial destroyer in addition to the station, remember to thank the emperor for his kind gifts"she said sarcastically before Nora's voice cut her off.

"thank you uncle palpatine!" screamed nora as loudly as she could, making the other pilots chuckle.

"Well said Nora, alright, our battle plan does not change, we take care of protecting the bombers, the rest of the fleet will take care of the star destroyer, questions?" asked Coco, leaving the silence stay for a second

"in that case, forward pilot, we have the history to write"! she shouted as the fighters of the entire fleet were charging the imperial station, closely followed by the bombers, themselves sailing between the corvettes.

The Domino Operation was just beginning.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 : Operation Domino ( part 1 )

* * *

Callula systeme , beacon bridge

The bridge of the beacon was a bustle, the frigate being, after all, among the spearhead of the battle.

Ozpin watched the development of the engagement from his chair, a cup of caf in his hand.

"Colonel, the Imperials have launched their fighters, they'll be in contact with our Z-95 in 60 seconds," said one of the officers

Ozpin did not answer, simply taking a new sip of his caf while analyzing the battle to come.

The presence of the Imperial destroyer was inconvenient, but not dramatic, they had gathered enough force to be able to destroy the base with the destroyer, even if they will probably have more loss than anticipated.

No, what he was worried about was what would come after the battle, the empire couldn't have ships for every planet in the galaxy, but he had more than any other force in the galaxy, and Ozpin feared that the imperial counter-attack would be devastating to the nascent rebellion.

"Sir, the imperial hunters are almost in fire range," said Glynda, waking him up out of his reverie.

"Alright, open fire, but be careful as not to touch our fighters," he replied, focusing his attention on the battle

He had positioned his corvettes above the fighters, so that at least the first salvo was not hindered by the rebel fighters, but after this, the fighters largely would be on their own.

Without leaving the screen of eyes, ozpin caught a sip of his caf, he would worry about the risk of an imperial counter attack later, he has a battle to win

* * *

"The imperial fighters will be in fire range in 10 seconds," said Coco as she mentally prepared herself for what was about to come

A few second later, the corvettes were firing, their positions allowing them to destroy many of the Tie fighters without being hampered by the Z-95 and bomber.

However, this was not enough to stop the ardor of the imperial pilots who threw themselves into an almost suicidal charge against the rebel fighter's flotilla.

The moment the two groups of fighters arrived carried each other, the space lit up for a moment by green and red laser bolt.

This moment of battle was probably the worst for the pilots, indeed, the mission of the fighters was to protect the bombers and for that, they had to fly in tight formation

At this precise moment of the battle, the only thing the pilots could do was to put all their shields forward and pray that they would survive the enemy's salvo.

Luckily, the Z-95 headhunter had shields, although weak, when the Imperial Tie hunters had none, which allowed the rebel fighters to clear up a little more imperial rank.

It was also at this moment that the talent of pilot began to come into play.

Indeed, after the first salvo was exchanged , the fighters of both sides "crossed", which often led to collisions, and this battle was no exception to the rule.

Several fighters collided, breaking themselves in a brief ball of fire.

Inside her fighter, ruby had little attention to devoted to the battle, almost entirely focused on the pursuit of the imperial fighters who tried to take the bombers to the flank

Despite all of its weakness, the Tie fighter was more agile than the rebel Z-95, and the imperial pilots knew it

"Rubis 2, where are you?" asked Ruby as she was shooting at the imperial hunters, more to maintain the pressure and push them to the error than to destroy them.

"I am almost there rubis leader, try to push them a little on your left" answered weiss through the intercom

And indeed, Ruby could see weiss's fighter coming at full speed on the left flank of the imperial fighters.

Ruby threw a long salvo on the right flank of the Tie hunters, forcing them to instinctively shift to the left, towards weiss.

The latter did not waste any time and two precise bursts of laser bolt destroy the imperial Tie fighter.

"That's how it's done" shouted ruby seeing the two fireballs appear in front of her, before the coco's voice resounds in the comlink of her Z-95

"To the hunter squadron, on me, we will destroy the station turret for our bombers," she said, bringing the entire squadron to regroup, with coffe section in the center, rubis section on the right and juniper section on the left.

And they were not the only ones, out of the 10 squadrons of rebel fighters, two thirds accompanied the hunter squadron in their hunting of turrets while the rest remained next to the bombers or cleaned the last remaining imperial fighters, which had clearly been decimated, too far from their base to have the support of imperial turbo-lasers and under the constant fire of rebel corvettes.

Yet as the group of fighters approached the base, the imperial destroyer jump in hyper-space

Until then, the destroyer was next to the station, and with its dagger-shaped hull it could only use half of its turbo-laser, while ion cannon seemed to be inoperative, the stellar destroyer having visibly suffered damage before joining the station.

The rebel captain had therefore chosen to get closer of the imperial ship to better take advantage of its cover against the station's batteries and allow a faster attack once the bombers had done their job.

Unfortunately, within seconds, the destroyer had entered hyperspace.

A blind jump was an extremely dangerous maneuver, especially in the midst of battle where the destroyer was in danger of re-entering a solid object and being instantly destroyed, not to mention that the destroyer had already suffered significant damage from the rebel cruisers.

Yet the Imperials were lucky this time, and the stellar destroyer did not collide with anything, instead merely appearing too far away from the rebel lines to do something in the immediate and had to first come back.

On the other hand, the rebel cruisers, in the small number of 8, who used the imperial destroyer as a cover against the proton torpedo launcher and imperial cannon, suddenly found themselves without any protection, not to mention the Tie bomber dropped by the destroyer before jumping in hyper-space.

And the imperial did not lose the opportunity.

Immediately after the stellar destroyer went into hyperspace, the station's ion batteries came on, immobilizing the 3 cruiser in their fire range

During this time the 2 Proton Torpedo launcher open fire on 2 of the cruiser at the limit of their field of action, which had thought that the distance with the base combined with the Imperial destroyer serving as a screen will be enough to be safe.

Unfortunately, the sudden disappearance of the destroyer, which had undoubtedly informed the station of his plan before going in hyper-space, combined with the immediate sending of the proton torpedo did not leave enough time for the rebel to react.

One of the torpedoes exploded right in the command center of one of the cruisers, killing the entire command bridge and shutting down the cruiser for the rest of the battle.

The commander, or pilot, of the second cruiser had better reflexes, the cruiser turning on itself, the Imperial torpedo blowing up on the cruiser's flank, causing significant damage but not destroying either the command deck or the reactors, allowing the cruiser to quickly get to safety.

Meanwhile, the turbo-laser batteries fired on the ships which, hit by the ion batteries, had found themselves without shield and could only be count on their armor to resist the imperial fire.

And finally, at the same time the bombers dropped by the destroyer moved at full speed towards the last three cruisers, among which was the atlas, which were already trying to get as far away as possible from the base, and it's proton torpedo.

There was a moment of silence in the intercom of the hunters before the cacophony of order began.

Contradictory orders, unfortunately, mainly due to the fact that the fleets were more or less independent.

Some wanted to continue the mission no matter the cost while others wanted to recall all the fighters to defend the cruisers.

Fortunately, Ironwood still had the theoretical command of the fleet, and his order come quickly.

"All ships, this is Admiral Ironwood, I want the Hunter and Orange squadrons to immediately join the cruisers and destroy the bomber."

"The bombing targets have not changed, the proton torpedo launchers are priority targets, the ion guns are secondary targets, the rest are tertiary targets, we will win this battle, and with it the freedom of the galaxy, so forward pilot, history will not write itself" said Ironwood, silencing all the other commander.

And for a few seconds there was a silence, maybe the pilots were waiting for confirmation from their respective commanders, maybe they were just scared, but all that was no longer mattered when Coco's response come .

"Copy that admiral, the hunter squadron is heading towards the bombers," she said, and less than two seconds later she was joined by another voice

"this is orange leader, we're right behind you hunter squadron"

Soon all the fighters had accepted the orders, and the hunter and orange squadrons were heading towards the cruisers at full speed

"We won't get there in time if we go around the station," says Orange leader

Indeed the station was partially on the fastest route that the fighters could take to join the cruisers, the problem was that the station had a lot of turbo-laser battery, which made any crossing risky, especially when they had to keep enough fighter to quickly destroy the bombers before they caused too much damage

"Who said we're going around the station?" Coco replied while the fighters were accelerating towards the imperial station.

There was a second of silence before jaune added

"We could even destroy some turrets on our way," he said followed by ruby

"Wait, you guy wanted to use another way?".

"Understood, understood, by the station then" replied Orange leader

And true to their word, all the fighters of the two squadrons headed full speed towards the station, the front shields at maximum.

Inside his cockpit, Jaune was probably the most stressed of the entire squadron.

Although he had improved a lot over the past few months, he was still the worst pilot of the squadron.

Honestly, despite what he said earlier, he was terrified, he was about to do an extremely dangerous maneuver.

But he was a Pilot of the rebel alliance, and he would act like one

As they approached the base, the fighters dispersed as much as possible, so as to disperse the fire, and this while flying as close as possible to the station itself to be a more difficult target for the turret.

Jaune himself made his own Z-95 hedgehopping, focusing all his attention on the turret to see which one was aimed at him, and avoid their turbo-laser bolt .

While his Fighter fly between two asperities of the imperial station, he saw a turret in front of him, and without further thought fired on it, destroying it in an explosion

"Yes!" he shouted as he accelerated, trying to pass the station as quickly as possible changing his shield from the front to the rear as he finally passed the station with the rest of the rebel pilots.

The maneuver turned out to be much less lethal than expected with only 3 fighters lost in the Orange Squadron, mainly because the Turbo Laser Turret was already occupied at firing on the cruisers, or repelling the assault of the bombers who finally went into action, destroying the proton torpedo launchers, but not before 2 new torpedoes come out.

Jaune, and the rest of the rebels, could only watch helplessly as the proton torpedoes destroyed 2 new cruisers, the first having surely hit the generator as the ships which exploded while the second torpedo literally cut the second cruiser, a nova-class battle cruiser, exploding in the "thin" part of the ship.

"We are practically out of range of the imperial turbo-lasers, put all the energy on the reactor" said Coco, her voice filled with a mix of sadness and resignation

Immediately the Z-95 of the hunter squadron rush forward, closely followed by those of the Orange squadron.

Luckily, even though the bombers were dangerously close to the rebel cruisers, they were not yet in range thanks to a combination of their characteristic slowness and the fact that Ironwood had launched the engines of his cruisers at full speed.

Even if the cruisers could not expect to outrun the imperial bombers, they could at least win some time

And this time he was right, the Z-95, faster than the imperial bombers who had in addition have to navigate between the tubo-laser bolt of the cruiser, had managed to catch them just in time

"This is orange leader, we'll deal with the 6 bombers on the right, you take the on the left, alright?" he said

"Understood" replied coco "You heard the man hunter squadron, juniper section, you take the two who are the most to the left, coffe section will take the two after and rubis section will take the following 2 " added she

"Understood Coffe leader, juniper 2 with me, we will take the one the most to the left , juniper 3 and 4 you take the next" said yellow, soon answered by a rapid succession of acknowledge

He was soon in range, and immediately opened fire on the bomber, which had seen it coming as it dive just before being hit.

Fortunately, pyrrha who had seen the action immediately launched a new salvo of laser bolt against the bomber that exploded

Jaune relaxed a little after the bomber explosion and wanted to take a look at the rest of the squadron but did not have the time to do so before pyrrha called him

"Jaune attention" she Shouted, a second too late as a green laser hit the side of his fighter, which had kept its shield at a minimum level to catch up with the bombers.

Indeed, one of the bombers assigned to the orange squadron, which had only one fighter assigned to this particular bomber, had managed to escape them and spotted Jaune's fighter flying in a straight line and took advantage of the opportunity

The response of the squadron was fast, and the bomber was soon destroyed by laser bolt coming from 4 different fighters

"Jaun..."began pyrrha before correcting herself "juniper leader, are you all right?" she asked

"Yes.. yes everything is fine, more fear than pain, the shields absorb the biggest of the impact, it will still be necessary that I make a complete check when we return to the beacon" he replied while watching the dashboard of his fighter.

The shot had by chance landed on a more or less reinforced part of the fighter, and the shields had sufficiently blocked the shot so that the damage were minimal, but it had been a close call, too close for comfort, he thought while sweating.

"Well, juniper section, you're returning to the beacon, rubis section and mine will continue to help the bombers, but the battle seems to be over" said Coco

And true to her word, the imperial base had lost almost all of its defense, while the destroyer has jump in hyper space

The destroyer had tried to do something, but the frigates had immediately gathered when seeing him approaching, and a star destroyer, alone and damaging , could not hope to fight alone more than twenty frigates

He had nevertheless managed to destroy one rebel frigate which had approached it a little too close before passed into hyper space, the captain of the frigate probably thinking that the imperial ships was more damaging than it really was

"What a mess," said nora, reflecting the feelings of the entire rebel fleet on a battle that should have been easy

* * *

Bridge of the "Maiden of war", in hyper space after it's retreat during the battle of Callula

The bridge of the destroyer was an indescribable mess, the imperial soldiers and officer were running in all directions while cables were hanging from the ceiling, blowing sparks everywhere.

In a corner, one could see an officer treating the wounds of another who had been injured in the head during a violent shock.

In the center of the bridge was a woman, Arkanian if one believed her white hair and eyes and her 4 fingers hand

She was dressed in a perfectly pressed Imperial officer's uniform, and calmly ordered the bridge in an icy voice.

"Transport all the wounded you can to the infirmary and place those who can't be moved on the left side of the bridge, and repair me the Holonet transmitter, I must speak to the imperial high command as soon as possible," she said, before allowing herself to let escape a rare sigh

While the "Maiden of war" was supposed to pass quickly through this area to go deeper into the outer rim, a spy had been discovered on board, and had managed to sabotaged most of the ion cannon before committing suicide thanks to several bombs placed all over the ship, this had forced the destroyer to join the Callula system station for repairs.

The Akanian would have continued her rumination for a while if an officer had not interrupted her

"Ma'am, we managed to repair the holonet transmitter," he said

"Finally some good news, put me in touch with the nearest imperial commander," said the captain as she headed towards the holo transmitter of the bridge

The latter was already lit when she arrived in front of it, an imperial officer with the rank of vice admiral was waiting for her, making her salute before speaking

"Captain winter schnee reporting sir, we have a problem".


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 : Operation Domino ( part 2 )

* * *

Beacon's Hangar, 3 days after the battle

In the hangar was the entirety of the beacon hunters, on which the engineers of the ship worked

among them, this found a hunter who caused serious problem to engineers

"Jaune, can you explain to me how you managed to bring this scrap heap on the Beacon, we had to replace the entire navigation system" asked one of them

"Hehe, lucky shoot, I guess," replied the latter, embarrassed

All around them, pilots and engineers carried out check up on the fighters, in case of an imperial counter-attack.

Nevertheless, despite the possibility of being attacked and the fairly significant losses suffered by the fleet, the morale was high.

The land battle went extremely well, mainly thanks to the help of the local population who had helped drove out the local imperial garrison

For everyone in the fleet, the empire would soon be destroyed and the years of tyranny would come to an end.

"Jaune" Screamed Nora, waving for him to come to her

With a final smile at the mechanic's attention , Jaune headed toward Nora, who was in the middle of a discussion with the rest of the hunter squadron.

"We can't do that" exclaimed weiss

"Relax, Ice Queen, a little alcohol won't kill you," Yang replied with an energetic pat on the back of weiss, making her cough

"I thought alcohol was forbidden in the ship?" asked Jaune

"We wouldn't be good smuggler if we couldn't smuggle a little booze," answered rubie with a smug grin

"But isn't it dangerous to drink when we could be attacked at any time?" asked Phyrra, making blake look up of her book

"This is why I said that we should wait for the reports of the other fleets, if no one as anything to report, there is very little chance that we will be attacked"

"It's strange however," remarked Coco, "the other fleets should already have made the second report on the planetary invasion"

"They're probably already partying," exclaimed Nora, making the other pilots giggling , and turning the conversation on the type of alcohol they should drink

"still, I wonder what are doing the other fleets," thought Jaune before entering the debate himself to avoid the most crazy ideas that were proposed

"no, nora, there's no way we're taking Accarrgm, you want to kill us or what…"

* * *

System Algor, at one hyper-spatial jump of caluula

Savler Nelwol slowly regained consciousness, while two stormtroopers, one on each side, dragged him through the corridors of a ship

"Probably an imperial destroyer" he thought, while the memories started to come back,

He was the commander of the small rebel fleet tasked with taking this system

The algor system had an important anti-imperial movement, but was not located at a particularly strategic place, unlike the Derellium or Caluula, so the rebel high command had therefore decided to assign a small fleet to the capture of this system

That is why, when a rebel vessel arrived from the Eibon system, severely damaging, and asking for help, Savler knew his fleet was doomed.

This fear was rapidly confirmed when, a moment after the arrival of the rebel corvette, a heavy imperial squadron, counting a total of 27 ships out of hyper-space, immediately jamming the communication of the system

The arrival of the heavy imperial squadron was like a death sentence for the small rebel fleet.

And savler, as admiral of the rebel fleet of the system did the only thing a commander could do in such a situation, save the maximum life.

He immediately ordered all available ships to recover the maximum number of troops on the ground and evacuate the system to Caluula, were they could warn the local rebel fleet.

Only the pair of cruisers, their only cruiser, had placed themselves between the Imperials and the rest of the rebel fleet, in the hope of saving time for the rest of the fleet, while the fighters and bombers had to retreat with the rest of the fleet, Unable to do anything against the number of Corvettes and Tie fighters that the Imperial fleet carried with it.

After destroying the lone damaged rebel corvette, the imperial commander divided his fleet in two, the only imperial destroyer and 10 vindicator heavy cruiser headed towards its 2 cruisers while 16 frigates bypassed the rebels cruiser to attack the rebel lighter ship trying to escape

To prevent the frigate from being blocked by the rebel cruisers, the imperial made them pass under the rebel fleet, while the rest of the imperial fleet concentrated its fires on the rebel cruisers.

Seeing that the ships evacuating the system were in danger, Savler chose to focus the fire on the frigate ignoring the imperial ships firing at his cruiser, knowing that it was out of effective fire range, and that their shot would at most be an inconvenience, at least for now.

The rebel ships therefore accelerated towards the imperial frigate, in the hope of taking with them as much as possible, or at worst delaying them enough so that the other rebel ships could escape

Three corvettes were destroyed and two more were damaged before the destroyers and the heavy cruiser could arrive at firing range.

Immediately, the shields of the old rebel ship dropped at an alarming speed, and it did not take long for one of the two cruisers to be destroyed, while his own cruiser was too severely damaged to continue the fight

At least part of the rebel fleet had probably managed to escape.

Nevertheless, contrary to what he thought, the imperial did not destroy his ship

Instead, they destroyed all of their defenses and survival systems before threatening to let them die if they did not surrender.

It was at this moment that he made his biggest mistake, he agreed to surrender

He thought he would save the life of his crew and, a little more selfishly, his own life.

But the Imperials did not see it that way**,** after accepting his surrender, they occupied his vessel and knock him out immediately, bringing him to its present situation.

The noise of a door opening make him emerge from his thoughts and bring him on the command bridge of an interstellar destroyer, which was dominated a man with blond hair in uniform of imperial officer

"Welcome to my ship" said the man turning around to the arrival of Savler.

"I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, but we both now that it would be a lie" answered Savler while observing the man in front of him

He seemed young enough for an admiral, probably in his forties, and the way he stood betrayed noble origin, but it was his eyes that struck Savler the most, the two gray orbs did not look at him with contempt or arrogance, but with pity.

"You know," said the Imperial "I can't help but think that you would make a good Imperial officer" at the surprise of Salver who was not expecting a compliment

The surprise must have show on his face, for the imperial let out a small laugh

"You seemed surprised, yet I only speak the truth, seeing that you are facing an enemy far superior to you, you have chosen to sacrifice yourself to let the rest of your fleet escape to warn the rest of the rebels, something that puts you above the other rebel commander, who immediately surrendered upon seeing my fleet arrived, or foolishly decides to waste their lives for nothing in a desperate charge"

The Imperial Admiral stopped speaking for a moment and take some time to observed Savler from top to bottom before resuming

"What I do not understand is how such a brave man, and a human being at that, could be corrupted by the lies of the rebels, why sacrifice your life for some alien scum?"

"This alien scum, as you say, have the same right to live freely as any of us, you cannot judge a person because his race is different exclaimed Savler

An expression of regret appeared on the face of the imperial officer

"I see that you are corrupted by the rebel lies beyond the point of no return, that leaves me only one choice," he said, waving to the Stormtrooper,

the latter caught Savler and dragged him off the command bridge

"It saddens me to resort to torture on another human, but you do not leave me much choice, at least know that your suffering is for the good of the galaxy" were the last words heard by Savler before the stormtrooper get him off the bridge

* * *

Darkane Seabas watched the rebel commander being dragged off the command bridge before his second asked him when the gates closed

"Sir, what do you want us to do the rebel prisoners"

"Eject all the aliens into space and dispatch the humans into cells on the ships of the fleet, even if they are rebels, they remain human, we will treat them in accordance with the imperial laws," replied Darkane

His second accepted with a nod, even though he knew full well that imperial justice would see them all executed as soon as they set foot on an imperial world.

Darkane observed for a moment his fleet, the rebels had managed to destroy 3 corvettes, severely damaging another and slightly damage the last

If the reports provided were correct, the rebels at Callula would be seriously outnumbered and outgunned

Moreover, Callula's rebel force had probably not been able to receive much reinforcement since most of the systems attacked by the rebellion had undergone an imperial counter-attack which, if the reports were true, was going extremely well, with among other things the north of the tion hegemonie already under control, with Tion itself under siege.

Meanwhile, the imperial forces had to start the attack on Dellat in the south of the hegemonie,

If he was the rebel commander, he would withdraw his fleet by the giblim road by launching a surprise assault on the imperial force in Dellat before joining the rebel forces in the area my calamari with the rebel fleet of dellat

If he played his card well, he could destroy two rebel fleets in one shot, and at the expense of one of it's rival at that,

"bring the fleet over Algor begin the bombing of the planet, and communicate to the transport fleet that the way is clear and that they can begin disembarking troops, in the meantime, I want a frigate to make a hyperspace jump to Callula and return as soon as she has the information on the placement of the rebel fleet and they number" Said Darkane to his second

"Understood," the latter replied, immediately beginning the preparatory work.

Yes, soon the rebels would be slaughtered to the last, then would follow the aliens while the most humanoid species would be allowed to live if they knew their place, and then, finally, the galaxy would know peace and order.

* * *

Callula systeme, Beacon Briefing Room

The atmosphere within the fleet had darkened since the news of the Imperial counter-attack had arrived.

The crew of each ship stood ready with a grim determination, waiting for the imperial attack that seemed inevitable

In the room where the pilots were gathered, this could be seen by the tense silence as Coco explained their plan to the squadron

"... With the advance of the imperial in the Tion hegemony, we have no other choice than to withdraw, for this we will join the rebel forces in Dellat, which are currently attacked by the imperial"She said while the holo-map illuminated the Caluula and Dellat systems and the hyper-spacial road between them,

"Once we have defeated the Imperials in a Dellat, we will evacuate the sector by the giblim road to the mon calamari sector , where the Imperials have less force in presence, questions?

"What will it be our battle plan?" asked Jaune

"When the fleet comes out of hyperspace, we will take off immediately with the rest of the fighters to cover the bombers, their goal will be to destroy any star destroyer, or if there is none, any heavy cruiser that would be in the imperial fleet, Our job is to protect them at all costs." answered Coco

"do we have an idea of the imperial forces in presence" blake asked

"We can expect an imperial force similar to the one that attacked Algor, which means that the corvettes will be particularly tricky to handle, another question?" says Coco, before letting a sigh escape when none comes

"Well, in that case, rest well, we'll leave in less than an hour, and may the force be with you"

* * *

Meanwhile, Atlas Bridge

An imperial frigate DP20 appeared on the sensors of the ships, it remained for some time before turning around and jumping in hyper space

"What are they doing?" asked Ironwood to ozpin hologram standing next to him

"I have no idea, it can be anything, from political maneuver to a redirection of a part of the imperial fleet to another sector, even if the second option seems unlikely replied ozpin" making Ironwood sigh

", it does not matter anyway , we must leave immediately, the reports of the last ships coming from the north of Tion hegemony are extremely worrying, the imperial will be on us in less than half a standard day"

"I agree, General Marcus has finished entrenching himself on caluula, we should go as soon as we can," replied ozpin

"In this case" began Iroonwood looking at the thirty ships under his command, almost all the remaining rebel forces in the Tion hegemony

"Bring the fleet in battle formation, were going to dellat."


End file.
